


Here In This Potent Silence Is Where I Come To Find You

by gansey_is_our_king



Series: Breath & Bleed In This Sweet Silence The King Has Left [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Because those two things go so well together, Cuddling, M/M, Pre-Epilogue, Ronan and Adam are ANGSTY and CUTE together, TRK spoilers, post trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6826741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gansey_is_our_king/pseuds/gansey_is_our_king
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan and Adam drive back to the barns.  Post the final chapter of The Raven King.  Pre-Epilogue.  Can be read as a one-shot but also compliments Part 1 in this series.  SPOILER ALERT for those who have not read The Raven King.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here In This Potent Silence Is Where I Come To Find You

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2. In which I get to indulge all my Pynch feels!

The wet road stretched out before the car like a slick black snake in the dark and the terrible electronica music vibrated in Adam. He reached over to place his open hand on the smooth dash. The heat was on—and it blasted across his cheek and arm. He could feel the roar that was the engine underneath his palm.

  
It shook in him with the bass. It shook in his bones.

  
It made him feel real.

  
He looked over his shoulder to see where the Orphan Girl had curled her small frame in the back seat with one cheek pressed to the window. Her warm breath fogged across the glass. Beside her Chainsaw rustled and flapped her wings in a restless fashion. Her beak parted and she let out a sharp rasping croak that rose above the music.

  
The next moment the Orphan Girl imitated the sound.

  
Adam reached over his seat and stretched out to touch her small pale hand. Her skin was like ice even with the heat on. He hesitated and then pulled his faded sweater over his head with some difficult manoeuvring underneath the seatbelt—holding it out to her and watching with a tight pain in his chest as she scrambled to put it on. The sleeves fell at least four inches past her hands. The hem was at her knees.

  
She blinked her wide wild eyes at him from under the skullcap that covered her short blond hair.

  
The car veered with a sudden sharp curve.

  
Adam grabbed the seat for balance. Then he looked back around to the front and saw a familiar drive approaching down the road. The streaked windshield sliced the white moon in three pieces. The trees that lined the narrow winding path on both sides rose in the dark like silent sentinels that waved them closer in the breeze.

  
His breath caught in his throat.

  
The tires hit the gravel and damp earth with a crunch.

  
Adam leaned over to peer out the passenger window—squinting ahead at the hulking barn house that materialized from the shadowed fields. The further the car drove the more was visible. Now he could see the scattered crooked farm buildings and the twisted plum tree beside the gravel lot out front and several deer that bounded away from the light when it struck them.  
Ronan parked the BMW in a rough slide—but as it skidded to a stop beside the dark house Adam suspected that the move was not for show. It was more old habit. The engine shuddered and growled and then went silent when Ronan pulled out the key. He pushed open the driver side door.

  
Adam scrambled out too.

  
His sneakers crunched on the loose gravel.

  
The air tasted wet and cold in his mouth.

  
He put down the passenger seat so that the Orphan Girl could scramble from the back and then ducked over as Chainsaw swooped out over his head. She was a massive black shape that wheeled above them in the velvet night.

  
Ronan clucked and held out his arm for her to land.

  
She completed another spiral in the air before driving toward him—her feathers wing brushing across his cheek as she flapped to keep her balance with her claws dug in his muddied shirtsleeve.

  
Adam took the hand that the Orphan Girl offered to him.

  
He looked at Ronan and let the silent question rise between them.

  
_Is this okay? Is it okay that I came here with you?_

  
He had not asked before—and Ronan had not offered to drive him back to his apartment above the church. Now the moment seemed tilted and odd and flooded with raw emotion that Adam was scared to feel.

  
He was so tired. He ached from it all.

  
Ronan jerked his head at the house. It was an invitation.

  
“Come on.”

  
Adam followed him in the front door, pulling the Orphan Girl behind him and then pausing in the hall to wipe the mud and wet grass from her hooves with his torn shirt hem. He was not sure when that had happened—if it was from stumbling around in the dark tunnel with Gansey and Blue and Henry or his terrible struggle with the demon above ground.

  
Ronan let Chainsaw down and then went to the kitchen.

  
He did not turn on the light.

  
Adam took the Orphan Girl to the sitting room. There was still blood and gore smeared across the couch but he pulled a blanket over the worst stain and then sat on the floor across from it. Chainsaw pecked at a rolled rug in the corner while the Orphan Girl settled down near the tipped over bowl that Adam had used earlier as Ronan dreamed. The liquid had spilled out but dried on the hardwood. He allowed the Orphan Girl to take his wrist and chew on the ruined strap for his watch as he let his mind run in tired circles.

  
Glendower was dead… the demon had tried to kill Ronan… Gansey had offered to die as a sacrifice… Cabeswater was gone… the demon was gone… Gansey had come back and he was alive now… it was over.

  
But it did not feel over. It was like a trick.

  
Adam was not convinced that victory had come so fast and soon.

  
He was so tired.

  
He closed his eyes for a second… a minute maybe… and then started when a thud came to his right. It was on his good side. He peered over at Ronan. He had gathered the Orphan Girl in his arms—her head lolled on his shoulder in sleep and her hooves dangled from beneath the enormous sweater. Adam watched as Ronan carried her from the room in silence.

  
He had not seen his face. He was relieved.

  
It was so hard to even imagine the pain there.

  
He remained on the floor and listened to the shuffled movement that trickled down from the floor above. Chainsaw had disappeared. He was alone in the room. He could smell dried blood on the couch. There was a creak and then a door snapped shut. Ronan came back down the stairs and reappeared a moment later in the hall.

  
His gaze found Adam.

  
His face was streaked and open. There was no mask.

  
Adam was not sure when it had come down for him.

  
Maybe it had been hours. Maybe it had been months.

  
Ronan never lied—and in that moment Adam could see each broken edge.

  
He realized that he wanted to go to him and touch him. He wanted to trace the vivid black tattoo across his back and shoulders and press his mouth to the ink. He wanted to taste Ronan. He wanted to chase the terrible numb sensation that filled him with poison and adrenaline and hot blood.

  
He wanted to feel… something more.

  
“Ronan.”

  
His voice cracked.

  
He was shivering even in the warm house.

  
Ronan swallowed. “Come here.”

  
In that moment he did not look at all like the Ronan that Adam was used to and he did not sound much like him either. His voice was brittle. It was small and broken. His head ducked when Adam clambered to his feet and came across the room. His heart raced in his chest with each step and then he was in the hall and Ronan was about a foot… no five inches… no two inches away.

  
He reached over and touched the purpled bruises on his neck—placing his fingers over the swollen marks that he had made. No. It had been the demon. But his hand still shook as Ronan closed his eyes. Trusting. He had not even tried to stop Adam when his stolen hands had choked Ronan—a demon seeking to unmake a dreamer.

  
Adam sucked in a sharp breath.

  
_Is this safe? Is the demon gone? How do I know for sure?_

  
But he could feel the absence in his chest where Cabeswater had once thrummed quiet and steady next to his heart. He could feel the loss in his pulse. His hands were his now. His eyes were his now. He knew that he would no longer wake in the night to strange and terrible visions. He knew that he would no longer have to scramble to arrange tarot cards in a fashion that made sense to him or lean over a dark liquid pool. 

  
Cabeswater was gone—which meant that his sacrifice was not a sacrifice.

  
It was as good as useless.

  
Adam felt the ache inside his chest and bones.

  
Ronan leaned over.

  
Adam let him rest his head on his shoulder.

  
Ronan exhaled—ragged and raw. His breath was hot.

  
“Jesus Christ.”

  
He was not Gansey. His voice was not the same at all.  But there was still some comfort in the familiar breathed curse.

  
Adam put his arms around Ronan and held him. This close with a smell that was sweat and blood in his nose his pulse was the BMW when Ronan sat behind the wheel with his foot pressed to the gas pedal on a deserted street. He checked his breathing. He swallowed and then pressed his hand to the curve above one hip.

  
_So this is what it feels like to want something.  This is what it feels like to need something._

  
Ronan pressed his face to his neck. His warm mouth brushed sensitive skin.

  
Adam gasped.

  
He was hot all over. He trembled.

  
“Ronan.”

  
“Wait.”

  
Adam hesitated. “Wait—for what?”

  
His voice was thin and raw. He was raw.

  
“Parrish.” Ronan touched his shoulder. His chest. His hand was warm. “I want you to be quiet right now. I just need to…” But he did not finish the sentence. Adam still understood. No words. No thinking. Nothing but this for the moment—dim yellow light streaking across them from the sitting room and Ronan pressed close to him as his breath came in short gasps and his brain screaming with want and need and terror and happiness and his heart screaming with more.

  
It was at least five minutes before Ronan moved.

  
He stepped back and ran one hand across his sheared head.

  
Adam swallowed the lump in his throat.

  
Then Ronan looked at the stairs. “I have to sleep. I just… but…”

  
He did not finish this explanation either but Adam nodded.

  
“I know. I can stay.”

 

"Okay.  Come on." 

  
The stairs creaked under their feet as Ronan led him to the second floor and then down the hall to his room. He pushed open the door. His curtains were pulled back and the bed was not made. The model car he had held right before he kissed Adam for the first time was on the floor with some rumpled clothes.

  
Adam peeled his shirt over his head.

  
Ronan hesitated. His eyes widened—but then he copied him.

  
He exchanged his ripped and muddied black shirt for a clean black tank that he found in a dresser across the room and then sat on the bed while Adam slipped his belt loose. He did not remove his jeans or damp socks—but even the simple act that was setting his belt on the floor seemed illicit.

  
He got on the bed too and waited for Ronan to lie down.

  
The mattress was not that wide. There was no room for sprawled limbs or bent elbows or cold feet but somehow the two made it work. Adam did not want to lie too close to Ronan but he did not want to lie too far from him either—so he settled for a spot near the edge but not on the edge and pulled the blanket over him. He could hear Ronan breathing just an inch or so behind him. He could feel each warm exhale as it brushed across his neck beneath his hair.

  
He shut his eyes.

  
“Is this okay?” he whispered in the dark.

  
Ronan shifted on the shared pillow. “Yeah.” His voice wavered then—thick with tears that he tried to swallow. Adam froze. Then he rolled over so that he could see Ronan inches from him. His shape was there—twisted and black from the shadows that choked the room. His shoulders heaved with silent sobs.

  
Adam touched his face.

  
He did not speak. He did not have the right words.

  
Gansey and Blue might—but he did not and a useless feeling drowned him.

  
But then the mattress creaked and sank near him and Ronan leaned close to press his face to his bare chest. Adam ran a hand across his sheared hair. His hands trembled and his breath snagged in his throat but Ronan did not seem to mind it. His shoulders shook for a while and then went still. Adam could feel the hot tears cooling on his skin.

  
“Adam.”

  
It was more like a breath than a word.

  
Adam clutched at him. Ronan shivered and put a hand on his waist.

  
“Is this okay?” he echoed.

  
Adam swallowed and then nodded. “Yeah.”

  
There were no more words after that. Just silence and slow inhales and quiet exhales and knees bumping together underneath the tangled blanket and arms twisted all around at odd angles. Adam fell asleep like that. He was sure that Ronan must have slept for a while as well—because when he opened his eyes several hours later the breath in the space between them was even and warm. Ronan had one hand fisted in the sheet next to Adam and the other rested on his chest—fingers spread open over his heartbeat. 

  
His face was not clear but the tears had dried on his pale skin.

  
His lashes fluttered across his cheekbones.

  
Adam closed his eyes then and allowed his mind to drifted back toward sleep.

  
The world had ended—but tomorrow it would wake once more with the sun.

  
The demon was gone. Glendower had been found.

  
It was over now.


End file.
